Could the web be invented now?

This commentary in the FT suggests that it wouldn’t – too many people with an interest in locking down and failing to spot that that internet has flourished precisely because it has been open. Fundamentally, it’s the difference between a broadcast medium and a communications medium.

There are three things that we need to understand about the web. First,
it is more amazing than we think. Second, the conjunction of
technologies that made the web successful was extremely unlikely.
Third, we probably would not create it, or any technology like it,
today. In fact, we would be more likely to cripple it, or declare it
illegal.